The Infinite Sadness of Small Appliances

Title: The Infinite Sadness of Small Appliances
Author: Glenn Dixon
Published: April 7, 2026 by Atria Books
Format: Kindle, 240 pages
Genre: Dystopian

Blurb: In a self-running, smart house, a young and sentient Roomba listens as her owner, Harold, reads aloud to his dying wife, Edie. Mesmerized by To Kill a Mockingbird and craving the human connection she witnesses in Harold’s stories, the little vacuum renames herself Scout and embarks on a journey of self-discovery.

But when Edie passes away, Scout and her fellow sentient appliances discover that there are sinister forces in their midst. The omnipresent Grid, which monitors every household in the City, seeks to remove Harold from his home, a place he’s lived in for fifty years.

With the help of Adrian, a neighborhood boy who grows close to Scout and Harold, as well as Kate, Harold and Edie’s formerly estranged daughter, the humans and the appliances must come together to outwit the all-controlling Grid lest they risk losing everything they hold dear.

My Opinion: This book completely caught me off guard. Yes, it’s written for adults, but my brain kept slipping into a kind of sad, dystopic Pixar mode—Man vs. Machine, but with heart, humor, and a surprising amount of soul. It’s a story about future spirals and fragile hope, and how something small and unexpected can save the humans they love.

Scout, the Roomba at the center of it all, is impossibly sweet and innocent in a way that makes you ache for her as she tries to make sense of the sudden sadness in her home. She’s a mechanical child, really, and somehow, she becomes the one who leads everyone else forward. You can’t help but root for her.

This is one of those books that’s nearly impossible to describe without sounding a little unhinged. You start to say, “Well, it’s about a man and his sentient appliances and how they confront the grid…oh, and there is a little boy trying to pass his piano finals,” and people blink at you like you’ve gone a bit too far. But once you’re inside the story, it makes perfect emotional sense. It’s full of heart, full of feeling, and yes, there may be a tear or two along the way.

You’ll never look at your smart appliances the same way again.

What surprised me most was how gently the novel braids together aging, grief, belonging, and the question of what it means to be conscious in a world run by impersonal systems. Through the companionship between a lonely man and the appliances that care for him, the book suggests that empathy, wherever it sparks, is the best form of resistance.

And just when you think you’ve figured out how their problems will be solved, Scout nudges you in a different direction. It wasn’t the ending I expected, but it was the one she knew how to reach. In her own quiet way, she earns her happily ever after: the ability to feel beauty, calm, and that tiny trick of the spirit we call joy.

This novel is strange, tender, and hopeful, and I loved the full experience.

Raising Hare: A Memoir

Title: Raising Hare: A Memoir
Author: Chloe Dalton
Published: March 4, 2025 by Pantheon
Format: Hardcover, 285 pages
Genre: Memoir

Blurb: Imagine you could hold a baby hare and bottle-feed it. Imagine that it lived under your roof and lolloped around your bedroom at night, drumming on the duvet cover when it wanted your attention. Imagine that, over two years later, it still ran in from the fields when you called it and slept in your house for hours on end and gave birth to leverets in your study. For political advisor and speechwriter Chloe Dalton, who spent lockdown deep in the English countryside, far away from her usual busy London life, this became her unexpected reality.

In February 2021, Dalton stumbles upon a newborn hare—a leveret—that had been chased by a dog. Fearing for its life, she brings it home, only to discover how impossible it is to rear a wild hare, most of whom perish in captivity from either shock or starvation. Through trial and error, she learns to feed and care for the leveret with every intention of returning it to the wilderness. Instead, it becomes her constant companion, wandering the fields and woods at night and returning to Dalton’s house by day. Though Dalton feared that the hare would be preyed upon by foxes, stoats, feral cats, raptors, and even people, she never tried to restrict it to the house. Each time the hare leaves, Chloe knows she may never see it again. Yet she also understands that to confine it would be its own kind of death.

Raising Hare chronicles their journey together, while also taking a deep dive into the lives and nature of hares, and the way they have been viewed historically in art, literature, and folklore. We witness first-hand the joy at this extraordinary relationship between human and animal, which serves as a reminder that the best things, and most beautiful experiences, arise when we least expect them.

My Opinion: I’ll admit it: my education is apparently lacking, because I had no idea there was a difference between a rabbit and a hare. Chloe Dalton set me straight on that within the first few pages, and from there, the book kept gently expanding my world in ways I didn’t expect.

This novel is slow, but intentionally so. It carries the same meditative stillness that settled over so many lives during the COVID shutdown. When someone who’s used to constant motion suddenly can’t travel, can’t rush, can’t outrun their own thoughts, what’s left is time. And into that quiet space, a tiny leveret arrives and changes everything.

This memoir isn’t about the grand arc of a life or a catalog of personal struggles. It’s about a moment; one suspended, tender season where a woman learns to move at the pace of a small, wild creature who trusts her without hesitation. It’s part memoir, part natural history, part animal husbandry, and somehow also a gentle reminder of what it feels like to breathe again. The slower rhythm of the writing mirrors the way Chloe herself slows down, shifting from a manic political adviser to someone capable of offering a calm, steady presence to a fragile animal.

Trying to explain this book to someone else is almost impossible. You end up saying, “It’s about a woman and a hare and… their coexistence,” and people stare at you like you’ve lost the plot. But they won’t understand until they read it. Until they feel the quiet trust, the unexpected beauty, the soft exhale that comes at the end.

For me, every bit of it worked. The history, the animal care, the emotional highs and lows all wove together into something quietly profound. It’s a book about noticing the world again, about the kind of connection that only happens when life finally slows enough for you to see it.

And I loved every minute.

Just Friends

Title: Just Friends
Author: Haley Pham
Published: March 3, 2026 by Atria Books
Format: Kindle, 352 pgs
Genre: Romance

Blurb: Blair and Declan were inseparable growing up—best friends who knew each other better than anyone else. But when an impulsive kiss took them from friends to something more, everything changed. Just as quickly as their romance started, one moment shattered it all, leaving them with nothing but heartbreak and silence.

Now, four years later, Blair is back in their coastal hometown of Seabrook to support her mom and care for her great-aunt Lottie as her health declines. To make ends meet, Blair applies to work at a coffee shop—only to discover it’s managed by none other than Declan. The boy she loved. The boy she lost. The boy who still makes her heart race.

As Blair’s path keeps crossing with Declan’s, old wounds resurface, secrets are revealed, and sparks reignite. But could their future ever be free of their past?

Told in dual timelines that unravel the magic and pain of first love, Just Friends is a moving, romantic story about second chances, the weight of dreams, and finding your way back to the people who feel like home.

My Opinion: I completely understand why early readers were skeptical of this novel. When a social media influencer with millions of followers releases a debut novel, the publishing machine tends to roll out the red carpet, considering the built in audience, guaranteed sales, and a whole lot of optimism that the book will succeed, whether the writing is ready or not. And in this case, it feels like the industry took the easy road, assuming the platform would compensate for inexperience.

To be fair, the writing isn’t the worst I’ve come across. There are moments where the story finds its footing, but there are also places where a strong editorial hand was desperately needed. For instance, if Blair’s great aunt owned seven convenience stores in a tiny town, why is Blair working at the local coffee shop instead of one of the family businesses? And the repeated use of “Mhmm”, peppered through the dialogue like a nervous tic, should have been toned down long before the manuscript reached readers.

What really pulled me out of the story, though, was how often Blair seemed baffled by the most basic aspects of her own hometown. This is a girl who supposedly grew up in a quaint California beach community, yet she reacts to property values as if she’s been living under a rock for a decade. Those disconnects add up, and they make Blair feel oddly detached from the world she’s meant to inhabit.

Structurally, the book follows the familiar beats: the meet cute, the miscommunication, the slow burn second chance arc, the conflict, the tidy happily ever after. But the middle sags. It’s linear to a fault, with no subplot to keep the momentum going, and the pacing drags enough that I found myself wishing for anything—an unexpected twist, a side character with teeth—to break up the monotony. By the time the “six months later” epilogue arrived, it felt less like a natural conclusion and more like a last minute attempt to figure out how to wrap things up.

And that epilogue introduces its own head scratchers. Blair’s mother suddenly believes she can retire because her daughter has written a book that is being independently published, and decides to sell the stores. She also appears to have no idea how to run the business she has worked at for fifteen years. Who was scheduling employees while Lottie was dying? How did the shops function? These are the kinds of logic gaps that should have been caught long before publication. The book is free of spice and strong language. Though marketed as new adult, it reads much closer to young adult, aiming for readers looking for a gentler, simpler read, and who aren’t likely to question the mechanics too deeply.

Which brings me to the bigger question: how did this book land at number three on the NYT list? The answer is simple—sales volume, not literary merit. And now that the debut glow has worn off, I genuinely wonder how the author returns to her usual online presence. How does she critique or comment on books when she’s now on the other side of the equation?

Still, publishing a novel is no small feat, and congratulations are due. But once the shine fades and the novelty wears off, the real test begins: what comes next?

March Recap